When an automobile during driving collides with a pedestrian, a bicycle, a motorcycle, or the like, a lower body of the stricken pedestrian or the like is flapped by a front portion of a vehicle body of the automobile, and a head portion or an upper body of the pedestrian may have a secondary collision with a highly rigid portion such as a pillar or the like.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-327064 describes an airbag apparatus for protecting a pedestrian, in which the pedestrian is prevented from directly hitting against a portion around a cowl top and an A-pillar, by inflating an airbag along the cowl top and left and right A-pillars of an automobile, when the automobile collides with the pedestrian.
The airbag described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-327064 has a structure in which a plurality of cylindrical airbags are connected in a raft-like manner and communicate with each other so as to widely cover the outer surface of a vehicle body; however, the document does not specifically disclose how an airbag base cloth (panel) is stitched to form the raft-like airbag structure.